Welcome to the West Bottoms in October!

Last weekend I made a crazy 30 hour trip to Kansas City to surprise my best friend Laura at her baby shower. It was so fun to surprise her and totally worth the back-to-back flying days to see her! In my very short time in KC, I managed to fit a lot of activities into my schedule. One of those being a visit to Kansas City’s nationally known haunted houses in the West Bottoms.

The 12th Street Bridge (directly across from The Edge of Hell)

Somehow I’ve managed to escape going through one of the West Bottom haunted houses in all my years living in KC. I guess my friends were never interested in getting the beejeezus scared out of them. Though my parents did take my brother and I to the haunted houses once when we were younger to see the rat man! (more on him later)

While you wait in line, there’s a TV playing secret camera footage of people going through the haunted houses. Pretty hilarious (as long as I’m never featured lol).

We decided to go through The Edge of Hell because it’s the original. It was established in 1975 from a converted five story warehouse, and has been frightening people for decades. The Edge of Hell is the  oldest haunted house in KC that features a quarter-mile walk through scary scenarios and ends with a five-story spiral slide from heaven down into hell.

The Rat Man: Putting rats in his mouth for 30 years! (btw, he’s the one on the left)

Another prominent feature of The Edge of Hell is its resident rat man. He’s been performing outside the haunted house with his pet rats for 30 years, starting when he was just 16 years old. The rat man walks among the crowd waiting in line with his rats crawling all over him, and if you’re lucky you’ll witness him put one of his rats in his mouth! He is employed full time for the haunted houses, and during the off season he does repairs and develops new scare tactics. (Side fact: He doesn’t even know how many rats he has…cool…)

Seriously, the West Bottoms is the perfect location for haunted houses. It adds that extra creepy factor.

I enjoyed going through The Edge of Hell, even though I was scared, anxious, and forced to navigate through complete darkness at times. The Haunted houses in the West Bottoms are only open from September through the first weekend of November, so hurry up if you want to be truly scared!

On a side note: I really miss fall in Missouri! My favorite season!